Thursday, 14 August 2014

Father of the Bum?

On 20th January, 1972, Chief Martial Law Administrator and President of
Pakistan—Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto—called a meeting of the country’s most
eminent scientists in Multan. Pakistan had faced the ignominy of a
terrible defeat at the hands of the Indian army a few months ago. Mr.
Bhutto asked the scientists to start working on the assembly of a
nuclear bomb. While the experienced heads declined to commit to this
venture, younger scientists unanimously responded that it could be done
in five years. Mr. Bhutto was satisfied by the response and left for a
tour of Islamic countries soon afterwards.

In July 1974, a letter
arrived at the Prime Minister’s secretariat (Mr. Bhutto had assumed the
office of Prime Minister after passage of a new constitution in 1973)
from the Netherlands. The correspondent claimed to be a physicist
working for a European nuclear consortium. He claimed to have obtained
blueprints for a revolutionary new process involved in building a
nuclear bomb. The person, let’s call him AK, was working as a technical
translator for the multinational URENCO consortium. In his letter, he
claimed ‘writing innumerable research papers and an internationally
renowned book.’ Son of migrants from the Indian state of Bhopal, AK had
been living in Europe for 13 years and was passionate about ‘debates
about the Hindus over the border, who had ransacked his old home in
1947.’ Mr. Bhutto tasked an Intelligence Agency to investigate the
whereabouts of this mysterious scientist named AK. It was found that he
had worked as Inspector of Weights and Measures for the Karachi post
office in the 1960s, after obtaining a science degree from Karachi
University. He left for West Germany for further studies and received an
offer to attend a series of introductory lectures in Metallurgy in
September 1962, by West Berlin Technical University. He moved, with his
newly wed wife, to Holland in 1963 and continued his education at Delft
Technological University. In his spare time, he used to write letters to
European Newspapers and magazines that he felt had misrepresented
Pakistan.

Mr. Bhutto was satisfied by AK’s track record and invited
him to start the process of assembling a nuclear bomb for Pakistan. He
was provided a laboratory to run, and unlimited funding as well as
official patronage. After smuggling different parts required for
building the bomb from a plethora of countries, and through not-so-legal
channels, AK succeeded in completing the crucial step in manufacturing a
nuclear bomb. The rest of the hard work was done by the Pakistan Atomic
Energy Commission (PAEC), an organization that AK hated with a
vengeance.

By this time, AK had developed an acute case of
megalomania. AK’s psychiatrist at that time, Professor Haroon Ahmed
mentioned in his reports that by this time, ‘he was suffering from
depression, and was classically manic.’ He used to boast, “Jinnah built
Pakistan, but I saved it.” AK even had an intelligence team follow his
Dutch wife and daughters because he thought they were more loyal to
Europe than they were to Pakistan. In 1984, he called a reporter at a
local Urdu digest and asked him to send him a list of questions for an
interview. He was so disappointed with the list that he threw it away
and drafted his own set of questions. He asked himself: “What do you
think was your greatest achievement?” and “Did the government recognize
your contribution?” In February 1984, he called Nawai Waqt and used the
same formula. He used to give charity to mosques and schools, all of
which had to bear his name as ‘testimony to his greatness.’ In 1986, he
invited a journalist from a small-circulation weekly digest called
Hurmat to interview him at his laboratory. It resulted in a series of
articles and a biography full of accolades for Mr. AK. One of the
articles echoed AK’s inner thoughts: “In order to overcome the energy
crisis in Pakistan, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission should be
overhauled and its leadership should be handed over to this Mard-e-Momin
of Iqbal”.

After Pakistan’s requirements for nuclear materials were
fulfilled, AK started selling different parts as surplus to the highest
bidder. He first chose Dubai and later Timbuktu as his operational base
for nuclear proliferation. The Afghan War prevented the United States
from clamping down on his activities, but the noose started tightening
in the 90’s. His footprints were all over the nuclear proliferation
racket around the world, from Libya to Iran to North Korea, earning him
the nickname “Typhoid Mary of Nuclear Proliferation.” In 2001, Musharraf
was forced by the International community to get rid of AK and his
crime syndicate, after two of AK’s ex-colleagues were found to have
travelled to Afghanistan to meet Osama bin Laden (OBL) there.
Intelligence sources in India and the US allege that AK co-owned
Al-Shifa chemical factory in Sudan with OBL, and OBL had financed the
construction of the Hendrina Khan Hotel in Timbuktu. In 2004, AK
apologized to the nation in a televised address for his “errors of
judgment related to unauthorized proliferation activities.” Musharraf
noted in his memoir, “The truth is that he was just a metallurgist,
responsible for only one link in the complex chain of nuclear
development. But he had managed to build himself up into Albert Einstein
and Robert Oppenheimer rolled into one”.

The arrogant “Father of the
Bomb” started writing elementary school-style essays for a national
newspaper a few years ago, continuing his crusade against common sense
and reason. He has made hundreds of factual errors in his “columns” over
the years along with an attempted whitewash of history. His most recent
diatribes have been directed against chairman of PAEC Munir Ahmed Khan
and Dr. Abdus Salam, Pakistan’s only nobel laureate. AK has accused them
of selling Pakistan’s nuclear secrets while comfortably ignoring his
own efforts to sell the same secrets to the highest bidder.Without the
efforts of these gentlemen, technicians such as AK would have failed.
Perhaps people living in stone houses should avoid throwing stones at
others.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

Intrepid Traveler, more interested in Political Economy and History than Medicine, Politically Liberal. I support historical Revisionism(rewriting Pakistan's textbooks). have written for Dawn Blogs(English and Urdu), The News, The Friday Times,The News on Sunday,The Nation, Journal of Pakistan Medical Students, Express Tribune Blogs, Pakistan Today, ViewPointOnline.net and Pak Tea House. Currently Assistant Editor at Pak Tea House. Interested in general knowledge.